Wednesday, May 30, 2007

There are several podcasts that have interviews as a significant feature (Shrinkrapradio, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe and Šimek ’s Nachts to name a couple I listen to regularly) and what I find frequently is that the quality of the podcast very much hinges on the quality of the interviewee. Today this became very clear, when I was thoroughly enjoying Dr. David van Nuys in Shrinkrapradio again. He was good old Dr. Dave, with good questions, high audio quality and his own pleasant voice and interview skills. What is more, so I find out, he had a good guest: Mark Blagrove.

What a difference with yesterday, when I listened to the previous podcast Dr. Dave had put out and I was utterly disappointed, but that, also, was with the guest.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Here is a nice story: In the beginning of time God walked on the face of the earth with the first woman and they discussed what the fate of humanity would be. God picked up a piece of dung with the intention to throw it in the river suggesting: "If it floats, men will live forever and if it sinks, men will be mortal." But the woman stops him, picks up a big rock and says: "I'll toss this stone into the river. If the stone floats, men will live, if it sinks, men will die." God shrugs and lets her have her way and then asks: "Why did you do that?" She answers: "If men won't die, there will be no place for love."

Anthropologist, archaeologist, psychologist and dream researcher Curtiss Hoffman relates a version of this story in the Shrinkrapradio podcast, edition 91, and reveals that this tale in nearly the same fashion is told both by indigenous people in the Sudan as well as in Wisconsin. He goes on to emphasize that these peoples could not possibly have met in history, at least not until the twentieth century, when these stories had long been recorded. Could they?

The more I understand history, the more I find out there has always been exchange between the cultures. So even if indeed the Sudanese never met the American Indians directly until recently, does that mean that until then there were no intermediaries either? Intermediairies that could have carried the story from one culture to another?

I do not reject the idea of archetypes or anything such that indicates some general underlying consciousness in people, but that doesn't mean I take any indication for granted. I'd like to know when these stories were recorded. My hunch is, no earlier than the 19th century, with its Romantic interest in folk tales. How many intermediaries could there have been until the 19th century that could link these two peoples and be a medium to transfer this tale from the one to the other? British colonials had reached both the Sudan as well as Wisconsin by then, so there need be only one intermediary, for all I know. With a couple of more intermediaries, we know the story could have traveled from America to Africa and vice versa, ever since 1492. What is more, there are also things we do not know, exchanges we have yet to discover.

It is still a remarkable story, regardless of a possible direct or indirect contact. The emphasis on the impossibility of the contact seems to want to make it even more remarkable and when such claim is not sufficiently founded and can so easily be challenged, it smacks of fervor, of a thirst for awe, of the want to believe. And that kind of thing gets my hackles go up.

Psychologists know how eager we want to believe something. Two psychologists in one podcast fall prey to their own want to believe. Not just with this story, also on the subject of dream incubation. When Curtiss Hoffman describes the technique, I get to think: this is how you can induce anything into anybody, what is it that justifies the exceptional importance of the induced dream? But both he and show host David van Nuys are so much into dream research that this is hardly challenged. And that is a pity. I am sure such learned people have much to say about the importance of dreams, but they are so full of wanting to show how wonderful all of this is, that they fail to make a point for hard science.

Curtiss Hoffman loses his credit with me when he recounts an occurrence that involved a student of his, whom he describes as a great, or a gifted 'psychic'. I can accept a person to be described as smart, or as insightful, or creative, or even wise. I can accept that occurrences are described as remarkable, as baffling or even as inexplicable, but not as a miracle. Never is someone a psychic, just as nothing is a miracle. Not that I do not allow for belief in psychics or miracles, but I do reject the use of those words. The use of those words reveals an intellectual surrender; one resigns from questioning and explanation. It even gives up proper description and without description, questioning or explanation there can be no understanding and when there is no strive for understanding, frankly, one even gives up on imagination. I hope the upcoming shrinkrapradio podcasts about dreams and dream research (there are three more waiting for me) have more to offer.

The National Archives of of the United Kingdom organize lectures they record, nice up with music and release as podcasts. This is a History Podcast I advise to pass, unless you are very dedicated to the subject. The latest podcast about King John and the Magna Carta is a case in point.

I am ready to suffer some drawbacks in educational podcasts, which quite regularly are recordings of live lectures. The result is mostly: bad sound, inaudible questions, additional noises, sudden lapses in sound level and the quite frustrating references to slides or other visual material. In this respect, this podcast is no less than others, it may even be better, but like with the others the compensation for these drawbacks hinges on the quality of the lecture as such. Is it exciting? Entertaining? Thought provoking? Can it deliver a couple of key points that open up the subject and allows you from then on to say something about it and understand more? On the subject of King John and the Magna Carta, none of that was established even remotely.

I guess everybody who dislikes history, must have had a teacher who delivered lessons in the way of the National Archives lecture. With a toneless voice and poor enunciation, the lecturer reads out the titles from his Power Point, hands then an endless train of dates, facts and figures without conclusion or punch, only to move on to the next slide with either the next title or some artifact of the archive. Even for the history die-hard, such as myself, it is impossible to keep attention, let alone pick up some interesting fact, understanding or even a joke or a juicy anecdote.I can't tell anything about King John or the Magna Carta, not even after two runs of the show. But to give you a feel of what it is like, ask someone who barely reads English to read to you the following lines:

Anne Frid de Vries was born in 1966 and grew to be neither the lawyer, nor the scientist he had hoped to be. A mediocre writer, a bland blogger and a dedicated father, are what we see by 2007. Here we see him on a school picture in 1976, squeezed in between the tallest boy in the class, Leo, and school master Brons. In 1979 he became an avid reader of comic books and I can show you here an 'Eppo' magazine that he signed with his name. This one he bought for 25 cents on the market. And here we have a recount he wrote of his first kiss in 1983. It has been suggested that this was his 'first time', but this is highly disputed and generally considered unlikely. We do have here a receipt for a package of condoms he bought in a vending machine in 1985 for the price of 3.50, 'gulden' the currency of that place and time. The head master Broekman, may have said in 1978, Anne was going to salvage the ESA project that failed at the time, but in 1990 he graduated Law School. Professor Huppes graded his master's thesis with a 9. Professor Hoekema brought him to the University of Amsterdam where he left to make a living as a software engineer in Israel. Here we see the ticket dated 13 may 1998 and you can see that the return flight was never used. The next item is a certificate of the Hebrew Course, 600 hours, 100% attendance. Marital life... yes. He married in 1998, became a father in 2001 and again in 2004. And this is a picture with him and his sons in 2006. Thank you.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests (Anne Curry, Malcolm Vale and Matthew Bennett) concentrate on the siege of Orleans in 1429. What had led to the siege? How was the situation for the English and the French side in this part of the Hundred Year War? What were the prospects? Then Joan of Arc enters the scene. Why did Charles, the Dauphin, choose to even allow her a chance of riding to Orleans in an attempt to lift the siege?

In fact he had little to lose. The figure of Joan mapped on some legends about a Maiden leading troops, that hung around. He was not aware that the English were actually stretching their might on Orleans a bit too much and were not invincible, in fact. So off she was sent with better chance than really understood. Then there is the famous turning of the winds and the siege could be lifted.

Events sped to the capture of Rheims and the coronation of Charles that tipped the balance in this war that was basically a war of succession. One gets the impression that by then Joan became dispensable, or even a threat and hence, her capture by the Burgundians and consecutive trial by the English and eventual death at the stake, were no longer a problem.

Then the figure of Joan takes on a symbolic meaning and when a couple of decades later there is a retrial, she is exonerated. From then she is the stuff that myths are made of. She captures the imagination of many and is sainted by 1920.

It underlines the quality of In Our Time, that 24 hours after listening to the show I can recount the broadcast, such as above. Again this was a brilliant issue of the show. The only thing I regret is what I had hoped to find: some version of Joan, as a human being. No matter how well documented her person is, few histories of her manage to find the middle ground between the mythic proportions (the mighty maid, the visionary, the saint) and the plain (illiterate peasant girl) woman. Who was she, really? That remains a mystery.

I want to close with Joan's own words (as recorded during her trial). When they tried her with a trick question, whether she knew she was in God's Grace -- a knowledge, theology had it, no one was supposed to have, meaning that a yes, meant heresy and a no meant admission of her evil -- she replied:

Monday, May 28, 2007

I love eating soup, I love cooking soup. During the warm season I prefer lighter soups -- potages, so to say. The lightest version of soups are sour soups, which I usually make with lemon juice, or, the not-so-sour versions, white wine. To my surprise, the kids love eating my sour soups. They just yum it up, albeit with the indispensable tiny croûtons that are so typically Israeli: שקדי מרק (photo left).

Pour in the oil and spices at low heat. Simmer and stir for a couple of minutes and add the cut onions. stir fry on medium heat for 5-10 minutes. When onions are shiny and tainted by the spices, add 1 tea spoon of salt, and tomato branch. simmer for another 5 minutes. Cut the tomatoes in quarters and add while stirring. Add boiling water, keep stirring. Add the garlic and boil for some 10 minutes. Taste the soup and add salt as needed. Boil for 10 minutes, add lemon juice. Allow standing time, taste and add salt if needed.

The kids do not like ground black pepper in this soup, but you can add to your taste during standing time or while serving.

OK, so I thought maybe, these paintings that show Christ's genitals may want to deny Christ's circumcision. So, I figured I blog about it and drop an email to Professor Margaret Anderson (of the history 5 podcast). I do those things, without much research. The amazing thing about the modern internet era is that I got an immediate reply from Ms. Anderson herself:

Thanks so much, Anne, for your thoughtful comments! Good question -- but based on a false premise. (It was said of Herbert Spencer, who "thought big," that he considered the definition of a tragedy "a large theory brought down by a small fact.")

For Jesus was circumcised. (Luke 2: 21-39.) The "Feast of the Circumcision of Christ" is celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox (Russian, Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian Orthodox, etc. etc.) Anglican, & Lutheran liturgical calendars (and perhaps some of the later Protestant denominations too, for all I know), and among Roman Catholics it was, until the 1960s, a "Holy Day of Obligation" -- i.e., a day like Christmas, Easter, Ash Wednesday, and a very few more, when believers were obligated to attend mass. Vatican II, in order to make the Church more "user friendly," cut down on the number of obligations, like not eating meat on Fridays, and now the "Feast of the Circumcision," while still an important feast, is not one that you'd have to drop work to go to mass for. (Not that you'd have to drop work, at least in the West, since it is traditionally celebrated on January 1). A good part of Bach's Christmas Oratorium, which deals with the whole 12 days of Christmas, is devoted to the Feast of the Circumcision. And thus, by the time we get to Epiphany, the Greek word for the "showing forth" of Christ to the 3 wise men/Magi/kings, and thus -- symbolically, to the whole gentile world -- which was the main subject of these pictures of Christ's genitals, Christ had already been circumcised. And there are also Renaissance paintings of Christ's circumcision.

In the VERY early Church, there was a big debate among the disciples and apostles of Christ about whether a gentile who became a Christian, would have to become a Jew first, and get circumcised. (We're talking adult males here!). [The] apostles Peter, Paul, and Barnabus convinced the "Council of Jerusalem" (I.e., the very early Christians, meeting in Jerusalem, all of whom were of course Jewish) that circumcision would not be necessary, nor would it be required of gentile converts that they observe Jewish dietary laws. Here is the apostle James:

It is my judgment, therefore that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath." (Acts 15:1-21 -- which is the 5th book of the new Testament, right after the 4 gospels.)

So if Christians weren't required to be circumcised, Why was the circumcision of Christ so important to the Church? You probably don't want to know all this, but it was important, not only to show that Christ's family were good Jews, who kept Jewish law, but because of the Christian tradition [of] Biblical exegesis. This tradition related the New Testament to the Old not only chronologically, but "typologically" -- or what we would call analogically or symbolically. Thus just as Jewish circumcision was a symbolic reminder of God's covenant with Abraham and all his descendants (the Jews), symbolizing Abraham's willingness to shed the blood of his son, Isaac, because God had demanded it, so too Christ's circumcision -- the first shedding of Jesus's blood -- symbolized "the new covenant" of God with Christians, foreshadowing God's eventual shedding of Jesus's blood for all the world, beyond the world of the People of Israel.

As for the importance of Christ's genitals for the Renaissance emphasis on the incarnation: had my History 5 lectures appeared in print, I would have of course footnoted my source for these reflections. Since they are oral (and, until last semester and the podcast, ephemeral), and since Berkeley undergrads would be bored to tears if I continually cited my sources, I left my source out.

It is the very stimulating work The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion. (University of Chicago Press, 2nd revised edition, 1997) by the art historian, Leo Steinberg (who, I assume, from his name, is Jewish). His book includes many of the paintings that I show my class to illustrate the point, although I found some additional paintings that support his argument myself.

The brilliant feminist medievalist, Carolyn Walker Bynum, who has specialized in gender issues and religion, published a very respectful critique of Steinberg's hypothesis when Steinberg's book first came out (the 1980s,I believe, or perhaps the early 90s). I can't remember what her arguments against Steinberg's interpretation were -- one of them was that emphasizing Jesus's maleness was not the same thing as emphasizing his "sexuality," only his gender -- but she went beyond that (maybe she said, in fact, that the wise men were pointing to his circumcision!). In any case, she convinced me that Steinberg's interpretation, though imaginative and brilliant, was wrong. (Her critique has been republished in one of her collections of articles). But the second edition of Steinberg's book, in 1997, has an appendix, entitled "Ad Bynum," which rebuts her arguments (he doesn't treat her nearly as respectfully as she treated him!)-- and I ended up being convinced by Steinberg all over again!

Obviously these are hypotheses. The artists themselves don't say WHY they are emphasizing Christ's genitals. But Steinberg's seemed a very plausible explanation for what looked like very odd goings-on in these pictures of the 3 Wise Men!

Thanks so much for your interest in History 5, Anne.Yours,Peggy Anderson

Wow, I am speechless. This is not just listening to podcasts, this is participating. It is not the first time I see podcast hosts go to great lengths addressing my reactions. Margaret Anderson (I am allowed to say Peggy, ha!) tops this experience. Have I said podcasts were great educational material? Have I said podcasts are better than talkradio? I haven't said it enough.

I will be writing much more of the latest edition of the History 5 podcast series which is carried by Professor Margaret Anderson. But in the fifth lecture about the common culture of early Renaissance Europe, she mentions something very new and very thought provoking: the fascination of the culture (at least of the visual arts) with the genitals of Jesus. This ranks from the little penis of baby Jesus, to the erection with which the risen Christ is depicted.

Many pictures show either the wise men examining the baby's genitals, or mother Mary lifting his robe in order to show, or even the child doing it himself. In addition, many of the pictures showing the dead or the resurrected Christ, depict him with an erection. Needless to say, in consecutive prudent eras, these details were painted over only to be rediscovered in recent restorations.

Professor Anderson's explanation is that this is allegorical and is intended to emphasize that Christ is human, a man of flesh and blood and as such kin to humanity. What this meant is, that on account of being related to men, it made sense for the Renaissance European that Jesus could have perished for their sins. This logic follows from the culture of having relatives be held responsible for debts. In this respect, had Christ been only divine, the death at the cross, could not be logically linked to the sins of humanity.

It is not for me to challenge Anderson's expertise, it just so happens another thought came to my mind. I think I'll ask her about it. (I did and she replied) When the genitals of baby Jesus are at stake, I thought, this may be connected to circumcision. The genitals are studied and portrayed either to make sure he is circumcised, or the opposite, he is not circumcised and if so, the whole meaning of these portraits is to remove Christ from his Jewish roots and as such dislodge Christianity from its Jewish origin.
The same could go for the mature genitals, though that would not explain why they have to be erect. Could that then, be some pagan element seeping in? Just some thoughts. What a podcast.

The skeptics' guide to the universe podcast is regularly co-hosted by Perry DeAngelis. He is the most vocal of skeptics when it comes to badmouthing the true believers and the deceivers in paranormalland. Frequently this puts me off. But in edition 95 of the Guide, I could only agree with him. In the section of listener's email, a YouTube video was being discussed. It allegedly showed an abnormal object on the surface of the moon, either man made or ... alien. It takes the panel valuable airtime to discuss this obvious hoax, prank or whatever kind of false thing it is, when finally Perry speaks up. Why are we even discussing this? Indeed, Perry, why are you?For once I totally agree with Perry. In stead of going for the obvious stuff, the skeptics could go for the more intricate issues. Take on deceptions that many more people believe in. It sure makes for a more interesting podcast. Right on.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

I felt the need to make a general explanation for the fact I publish low fat recipes.My recipes are not made for losing weight. If you want to and need to lose weight, you will have to find a dietician to help you design a diet that fits your physical make up and that will help you lose weight in a responsible way. Or if you do not want to go that road, you might want to try diets that are laid out in various dietary programs or books (for what they are worth; I am convinced there are a lot of scams and plain ineffective methods out there) or even enter a support group of the likes of Weight Watchers or OA. Whatever the road to take, and what ever the outcome, to reach the right weight is one thing, stay there is another.My low fat recipes are our way of staying at the right weight. When I look back at the recipes I followed when I learned cooking, there was no intention of keeping the calories down. The amounts of calorie rich ingredients were not kept at a reasonable rate (sugars, fats, carbo-hydrates) and maybe made for very delicious meals, but not very healthy ones. The current quest is to make (or remake) recipes and crank down the calories. I try not to use sugars, but if I have to, use no more than one tea spoon per four servings and preferably replace with more natural sweeteners such as honey (which by the way can be obtained in a light, low calorie version) or raisins and other fruit. I keep oil, butter or cream at a rate of one table spoon per four servings. Carbo-hydrates (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes etc) are fine with me, I'll just eat no more than one serving.All of this is fine, but must go with two other rules for eating, otherwise it won't work. The first rule is to never go hungry. When you are starving you are inclined to indulge in eating or attack some high calorie food. When having eaten in time it is much easier to stay away from the bad foods.The second rule is just as important and easier to abide by if you stay true to the first one: never over-eat. It amazes me now when I look back and understand how I had made myself used, over the years, to stuff myself up. I had to unlearn this and gradually get used to eating smaller portions. It is very important to understand that this needs getting used to, otherwise eating binges are on the lure again. But one should eat just enough to not go hungry until the next meal.And thus, with a normal three meals a day, eating as much as I want (without stuffing), I can stay away from the calories and remain at a normal weight.

Friday, May 25, 2007

For our Sabbath meal I used the most amazing means to make a stew in an easy, clean and low fat way: the cookie bag. This is a plastic bag that is made to sustain the high heat of an oven (up to 200 degrees centigrade) and this allows for cooking with almost no fat at all and still come up with a very tasty meal. I am still in the process of perfecting my recipes for the cookie bag, but for completeness sake, I give the one for Friday evening below. First I want to explain more generally the use of the cookie bag, though. Nothing sticks to the bag and as a consequence one can make a mix of all the desired ingredients of the stew and not add any more fat ingredients than is needed for taste. This allows for making a dish without oil or butter or such altogether. Any combination of vegetables with fish, fowl or meat can deliver a very tasty stew. Vegetables with a strong taste of their own such as garlic, ginger, fennel, carrot, paprika for example are fantastic contributors to the stew.

Throw all the ingredients into a large cookie bag. Mix well. Close the cookie bag with delivered clip and punch some 4-8 tiny holes in the bag with a tooth pick. Put the bag in the oven at 180-200 degrees for one hour. Let the holes in the bag face upwards in order to prevent leaking, but allow steam to be let out and not cause the bag to explode.

Here is the first thing I learned from the PffP podcast after two lectures on power and energy: hydrogen has three times more energy per kilo than gasoline, but it has three times less energy per liter. How is that? It is because of density. Gasoline is so much denser that you have more weight per measure of content. In other words: it takes up less space. The consequence is that hydrogen may be a really good alternative for gasoline, because it has more energy in it and also, very importantly, is less polluting, but for putting it in cars it will take up too much space. Then again, for trucks and airplanes space is much less a problem. So in the near future we may see trucks and planes hydrogen driven, but less likely cars.On the subject of cars I also got a good explanation of why hybrids are the future. And even though this is a physics class at UC Berkeley, I did not drop out as I did in high school. Many more lectures to go; I am excited.The physics for future presidents is a lecture series that intends to hand out the broad lines and important social relevant facts of physics to any student, regardless of majoring subject. The lecturer Richard Muller is very entertaining, yet well on track and persuasive on the important stuff. A gem in educational podcasts.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

I never know what to call the vegetable. Is it zucchini? Squash? Courgette? Whatever it 's named, that's what it is and for this recipe I used the dark skinned type. There is also yellow skinned and light green. There is also a difference in shape. I took the elongated version, not the ball-shaped or the ones that look like small pumpkins. All in all, the difference in taste is not so huge. I guess you can use them all, but for the sake of accuracy: dark green, elongated zucchini is what I used.Another ingredient that needs some discussion are the spices. I use ground spices, mostly, as they produce a more evenly distributed and stronger taste. If you ground yourself, be aware that finer grounding gives stronger taste immersion, especially when fresh. Still, you have to be careful and know your stuff. A spice like cinnamon can be different in strength from one ground packet to the next. Another ingredient where the strength can differ enormously is sesame oil. I have the dark, concentrated stuff that is very strong. I have no experience with the lighter version. I only know from an Indian woman I know, who is used to the light version, that in case she can only obtain the dark one, she mixes it with regular oil in order to get something near to what she is used to. In short, the difference is enormous.

Stir fry in the butter and sesame oil, first the cinnamon, cloves and galanga and then, after a few minutes, when you smell the spices, add the finely cut zucchini and onion. Stir fry and slowly build up heat, until the onions and zucchini are shiny. Add salt and bay leaves, stir and slowly turn down the heat. On low heat add soy sauce and water after which you turn on the heat again. When the soup is boiling, add the garlic. Boil some more and then add the honey, turn heat down and let the soup simmer. Taste from time to time; add salt, honey or soy sauce (or even pepper) according to your preference and the taste development. Take the soup off the fire and add milk. Allow to stand for at least 30 minutes.

A word on calories. I try to cook on a low fat basis. The interesting discovery is that whatever recipes I have learned or developed over the years, when I redo them, I find that the amounts of oil, butter, cream, honey and so on can be significantly reduced. The rule of thumb is that one should not have more that one table spoon of oil/butter/cream etc per 4 servings. For stir frying, for sauces, for stews, it surely makes it more difficult to retain the taste as should, but it can be done. In addition, wherever possible I use low-fat ingredients such as light honey and skimmed milk in this recipe.

Larry Josephson is an experienced radio maker who conceived of a history podcast that makes an expose of various aspects of the history of Jews in the United States. It carries the title 'Only in America' apparently as an expression of the feeling that Jews were never as well accepted historically as they were in the US. Nevertheless there are also episodes about antisemitism. In addition there are full feature interviews and a couple of theme issues, that all in all are covered by the subtitle: "350 years of the American Jewish Experience."Larry's background in radio journalism has led him to do much more than what you find in regular podcasts. These are full blown radio programs. They are complex productions bringing together source material from Columbia University's oral history program and snippets from interviews and lectures as well as historical audio material. A good example in point is the latest edition 'Over the Rainbow' about the Jewish roots of Hollywood and the development from its origin days to date, with the Jews that took part and the measure to which Jewish content could make it to Hollywood productions. I have compared podcast to talk radio in other posts. Only in America is talkradio that wasn't made for regular broadcast but turned into podcast in stead. As far as I could discover from either the shows or the references on the web it was never carried by any station on air. This seems to me the best example of talkradio turned podcast. I can only wish Larry reaches a larger listenership than he would have with regular radio, he deserves it. This is a great podcast.

You need to be up to date on the subject that David Kalivas discusses in his World History podcast. With a lot of enthusiasm I made a second run of his series of lectures and while I enjoyed it, again, a lot, I was disappointed as well. You cannot take the series as a full blown educational podcast. After listening you will remain with too many fragments. If you need an introduction, or even an outline of World History, do not take on David Kalivas.Although he is a very pleasant and entertaining lecturer, he goes off on tangents all the time. Consequently, the historic milestones are not all mentioned, or even put in order. Whatever he says is very worthwhile and I liked hearing his words, but they serve an entirely different purpose. They pick and choose on some aspects of World History and give some in depth reflections on them. This means that if you are on par with the discussed epoch, setting and events, his lecture can be very thrilling, but that is a lot of prerequisite to take into a podcast.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

What did we do on Shavuot? I want to mention three things and this goes to show, more so, what I wrote yesterday -- how this festival of the reception of the Torah, for all practical purposes is one of the early harvest.We had a campfire with friends, we made a basket of offerings with stuff we made in our kitchen and took it to friends and then we visited a kibbutz to see the celebrations there. The Kibbutz celebrations are very traditional in Israel and make no statements on the Torah at all and all the more work out as a display of all the harvest elements these agricultural communities can offer. A couple of years ago we witnessed one in the Galilee with an impressive procession of tractors and other farming auxiliaries, decorated with whatever representation of what this kibbutz was farming. This was followed by performances of singing dancing and such.This time round, in a much more urbanized settlement. The result was unbelievably poor. If one ever needed a reminder that we urbanized folk hardly have any rural roots left, we got one here.

The question this observation together with yesterday's raise is: are we finally ready to leave behind the ancient acting out of Shavuot and move to the more cerebral, abstract meaning of Shavuot: reception of Torah. The Jewish tradition launched. On a side note. The Christians mapped onto this and the festival became Pentecost, which is the reception of the Holy Spirit and the launching of the Church. I wonder what pagan festivals were hijacked in order to Christianize the Europeans and get them to celebrate Pentecost.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Shavuot is the Holiday that commemorates the reception of the Torah. It is also a harvest Holiday as you can understand from the other names of the Festival: Chag haKatzir (Festival of the Reaping) and Yom haBikkurim (Day of the firsts (fruits etc.)). It is customary to dress up in white, eat dairy products, exchange baskets of fruit, vegetables and dairy (Tenne) and have children wear flower wreaths. I have asked why there is this strong connection with white and dairy and obtained various answers over the years. One is that the Israelites were white as children (innocent, naive, ignorant), when they got the Torah. Another is that the laws for kashrut were not yet known and so they ate dairy. And yet another is that in order to be ready to obtain the Law, the Jews must wash up and become white.Well, I am no scholar and here is not the place I want to criticize these explanations. All I want to say is that, more than with any other Jewish Holiday, the liturgic meaning of the chag (Reception of the Law), is overshadowed by the additional meaning, by the look of things. This additional meaning, totally dominates the holiday and makes it for the secular newbie that I am, an exclusive harvest festival. It is all about the first fruits and grains and milk that have been reaped. It makes it more likely than with other religious festivals, that this festival was mapped onto an older, rural, maybe even pagan festival.The amazing thing is, that these Jews that are more urban than ever, still live the earliest roots of the chag in a stronger sense than the newer ones.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Five pieces of fennel,half a garlic (7-10 cloves),tea spoon turmeric,tea spoon ground cumin,pepper,two lemons,a table spoon and a half of olive oil,salt.Clean the fennels (keep the green leafage aside) and cut to fine pieces. Put one table spoon of olive oil in the pan on low heat and add the turmeric and the cumin. Stir fry for two minutes and add the fennel. Stir fry for ten minutes, while gradually increasing heat (make sure neither the spices nor the fennel gets burned). Add ample salt and boiling water (3 to 4 liters). Then add the garlic. Cook for 15 minutes and then add the juice of two lemons. Cook on low heat for another two minutes, add the leafage of the fennel and allow standing time. Add salt and pepper for taste.

If you do not know how to deal with aubergine, it is a really terrible vegetable. It can be a tasteless sponge that makes your dish heavy and even make some people ill, whether it is because of allergy or otherwise. It can be a nightmare while preparing dinner. The green of the plant is like a nasty thistle that hurts your fingers and leaves the sensation of having touched a cactus. Throw in the aubergine too late and the whole dish is ready to serve except for the aubergine that is bitter and rubbery. Cast it in too early and the sponge takes in all the fluids messing up the stew for other ingredients. Over the years, I have begun to learn to get the eggplant under control, and I am still learning.If you peel the aubergine, cut it in strips and cook it with lemon and tahin, you can get a soup that competes with a creamy soup of asparagus -- I am still trying to get that recipe right. I am also perfecting a dish with minced meat and a red sauce. My wife has some good results with softening the cubed eggplant in the microwave. So there is lots to come.

The easiest way to begin getting the aubergine right is by using the oven or the grill. Without additions, aubergine at high temperatures, turns soft, liquid even, if given enough time. The flavor is sharp and pleasantly scorched. The softened eggplant makes for an excellent basis of pastes, sauces and stews. I'll give two of them here.

Take an aubergine and cut it lengthwise in half. Cover the halves with tinfoil and burn them at 200 degrees for about an hour. (This depends on the power of the oven and the size and toughness of the plants. Large and tough needs more time and power.) After this treatment, you can scoop the liquid out of the peel. Mix it with garlic, a little tahin, lemon and pepper for a traditional middle-eastern side dish. Last night though I made two other side dishes.

Mix with oil, lemon, salt and pepper. (Burnt Aubergine, חציל על האש)

Mix with half a spoon of mayonnaise and ground black pepper. (Baba 'Anush)

Me and Physics; don't make me laugh. I dropped out of Physics class in high school (3 atheneum). I can't even get Newton's equations right. Forget about General Relativity. What could I possibly make of gravitational waves? I am a man for History, languages, Law, in case you hadn't noticed. It just so happens that Law brought me to Sociology and Sociology to Logic of Science and once there, you roll from Popper to Einstein and back to Physics with renewed interest. Interest is one thing, but how in the world am I going to grasp all that if I couldn't keep up, right from the start?In our time, comes to the rescue. Melvyn Bragg met with Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey, with Carolin Crawford, Royal Society Research Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge and with Sheila Rowan, Professor in Experimental Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow and they sorted it all out for me. I am not going to try to reproduce anything of their discussion here, no need to get audacious, but believe me, I didn't miss a second. This podcast is one of the very, very best there is.

Schug is a spicey additive that has its roots in Yemen. You can mix it with sauces, salads and soups. My father-in-law used to make it at home after learning the recipe from a Yemenite Jew colleague of his. I asked him on occasion how he made it, but it was only several years after he passed away that I set out to reconstruct the recipe. Today I make a schug that is different from what I recall was his, but has developed in the direction my wife and I like it best.green peppersfresh cilantro leaves (Koriander, כוסברה)lots of garliccumincardamomblack peppersaltolive oillemon

Every time I take the ingredients in different proportions. It really depends on the season and what I know of the quality, strength of taste, in the ingredients. Right now, because the warm season has started, I use more salt and oil to prevent early molding.Clean four green peppers: cut off the top and bottom, throw away the seeds and cut them in easy to chop pieces and throw in a blender. Add one tea spoon of salt, one tea spoon ground cardamom, one tea spoon ground cumin and half a tea spoon fine ground black pepper and a spoon oil. Blend. Add a handful of cilantro leaves (100-200 gram) and seven cloves of garlic. Blend until the whole becomes a green paste. Add more oil and the juice of one lemon. Blend for five minutes.

Podcasts are my means to perceive the world. On whatever subject I like to achieve more understanding, I look for a podcast. The KMTT podcast is among a handful, I follow for enhancing my knowledge about Judaism, be it religious, be it secular. KMTT was recommended to me by a religious acquaintance. He himself listens to the Hebrew version, which I haven't tried yet.I listen to the English version, but not to all issues. I have a lack of interest in halachic matters, so I pass these over. What I pick are the theme episodes on Jewish thought and philosophy and the ones on the weekly Torah readings, parshot hashavua.

This week's parasha is parshat bemidbar and as usual I had a hard time following the whole lecture. No matter how much I like to see myself as a Jew, a secular one for that matter, in these traditional settings I feel like an anthropologist and a newbie at that. Alternately I feel, the way I felt in my first years at Law School when University Studies and Legal Thinking still eluded me. An inapt and scrambling outsider.

Nevertheless, I did pick something up. One of the things that is mentioned in parshat bemidbar is the special place the tribe of Levi has among the Israelites. The lecturer (Rabbi Yonatan Snowbell) discusses what meanings and sense this place, aides to the caste of priests, the cohanim, has. There seems to be a connection with the role the Levites fulfilled when the sin of the golden calf took place. They were the only ones who did not sin and they were appointed the task to kill those who did. (And some 3000 were killed, good old bloody Bible.) Then the task of aiding the cohen was taken away from the original appointee and given to the Levites.Fine, but this raises a question of how this is justified. Is it because they did not sin or were they chosen to get the task all along. The whole thing comes to stand in a strange light if you take into consideration that Aharon, the cohen, had also sinned, not so badly that he needed to be killed, but nevertheless he did. Yet, he was not replaced from his office and the Levites were not placed over him, in stead became his aides. How is that for measure and equity?

When you are a secular it is easy to stay indifferent or just declare that such passage in the Bible doesn't make sense. When I was still busy as a legal professional, I saw that with matters decided by the Supreme Court or by the Legislator, you were intent on understanding and interpreting the law in an optimized way, but should you find a verdict or a statute that you cannot reconcile with the system of low, you are in a position that you can reject it.A religious Jew, however, can never reject anything in the torah, hence he has to ingenuously reason around the whole text and persist endlessly to find sense. That is, from the perspective of secularity or of secular legality, a weakness, yet it is a strength by means of the resulting creativity and depth in the reasoning.The end picture is that of a mixed one where both the sinner (Aharon with assignment to atone) as well as the righteous (the Levites) have their place and so it seems, the righteous as an aide to the sinner, who is to be the leader. Fascinating thought.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

It is no small feat to get your chumus salad right. However, these days I make new portions for our household every week and I no longer am intimidated by the challenge. I have established a stable quality that has found wide praise and I have found the secret ingredient: ... naah, that would be telling. :)

I have browsed through many a cookbook, I have interviewed orientals in the neighborhood, who wouldn't want to be found dead with a bought chumus salad in their house, I have searched the internet and nobody mentions the ingredient I have discovered -- and I find it indispensable. If you want to get your salad right, nice and creamy, nothing that sits like concrete in the stomach, you are going to need it. All right, I am going to divulge it anyway, so let's go and mention it here and now: I get my salad right with ... water. Yes, water, as simple as all that. I suppose tap water will do, but I use bottled water, for what it is worth.The problem is not with the chumus, that is the chickpeas (Nederlands: Kikkererwten), the problem is with the tchina, that is the tahin, the paste of sesame seeds. If you make chumus the way sephardi grandma's or Arab food stall owners tell you to do it, the tchina makes the salad lump like heavy dough. What, if you ask, makes the salad creamy, is either not answered or if it is, you will use too much of the additive: lemon juice or olive oil or the water in which the chickpeas were cooked (or held in case you use a can). Once it was even suggested you need to separate the peas from their skins. For one that was an awful lot of work, and second: it didn't make any difference.You need lemon juice in chumus to lighten up the taste, but use too much and the lemon gets too dominant and the salad is too sour. Olive oil, I do not use at all. I may add it to a serving, but on the whole I try to keep the calories down in what I cook. Besides, oil doesn't make for creamy salad, it makes for oily salad, which is a different taste and also oily is heavier in the stomach -- what we wanted to prevent anyway.Now, the chickpea brew... Here is what brought me to water. You see, the water from the can is salted, not so tasty, ripe with additives you may not like in home-cooking and ... Hey, I do not use canned peas anyway. I buy them dry, I soak them for half a day and then cook. What happens during cooking, is, apparently, some kind of starch gets separated from the peas into the water. If you allow the brew to stand and cool down you will see the starch thickening. Needless to say this is also heavy on the stomach. In addition, I have learned to cook the peas with baking powder (sodium bicarbonate) and I wouldn't want that in my food.Hence, I tried my hand with water and it worked -- perfectly. So here goes. My recipe for around 500 grams of chumus salad.250 grams dry chickpeas200 grams tchina טחינה גולמית=1 tea spoon salt1 tea spoon ground cumin1 clove of garlicjuice of 1 lemon2 tea spoons sodium bicarbonatewater

Soak the peas at least 8 hours in water and one tea spoon sodium bicarbonate. Skim the foam that is separated from the peas. Note that while soaking, the peas make popping sounds. Don't go looking for a leaking tap, or a scurrying insect, the noise comes from the peas.After soaking, cook the peas with lots of water and one teas spoon of sodium bicarbonate for circa 30 minutes. Right from the beginning there will be a lot of foam you'll need to skim away. Next, stir while cooking and observe how some pea skins come floating about. They are tasteless; if you have the patience, remove as many as you can. When the peas get the right taste and smell take them off the fire and throw them in a sieve and rinse with cold water.Put the peas in a blender with salt, garlic and cumin. Make an initial blend. Add the tchina and blend again. The whole will develop into a thick dough. Start adding water and blend till you approach the correct texture. Then add the lemon juice. Blend again and taste. Maybe you will want to add just a tad more water and then you are done.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Somehow it never happened until now. Today we drove to the old city of Jerusalem and this time, apart from visiting the Western Wall, for the first time in my life, after so many missed opportunities: I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. My old schoolmaster would have been proud of me, maybe hoping my soul is yet to be recovered for Christendom, but no such luck.Just as the Kotel looks to me like a mere bunch of stones, the church of the HS looks like a dilapidated, anachronistic smudge. If I liked being there, it is only because it spoke to me on whole different level -- nothing religious or even spiritual.

What a weird place it is. A dark, amorphous dungeon, with numerous alleyways and niches and shady parlors on worn flagstones and filled with tourists, gazing pilgrims and the odd priest looking more like a prop from an Indiana Jones film than a proper priest. For example there was this crooked, young looking, skinny priest, with a long black beard and a crocheted black head garment. He had set up shop with a huge host of religious trumpery, almost impossible to make out, for there was so little light in his cramped alcove. He was devoutly praying in the way of a religious Jew from a prayer book with Arab script.An Armenian priest with black robes and upside down top hat was energetically managing the entries into the Tomb itself, while chewing tobacco, or otherwise jawing and spitting about. Some pilgrims looked distinctly out of place, such as the Russian lady with flashing red outfit befitting a brothel, rather than a Church, or Dutch pedestrians, seated on the stairs in a yogi pose.

This looks nothing like the kind of Christianity I grew up with. Well, I know that, I am prepared for that. Never, when I visit some Christian site in Israel, I find light and sober Calvinist churches. If it looks like anything I once associated with something proper, it is the Roman Catholic stuff you find for example in Nazareth and on Mount Tabor. Over the years I have come to know also a little bit better the Greek style, not just in Israel, also as a result of journeying Greece. However, this looked not even much like that. The odd icon, perhaps, but it was all too dark and dirty. It was Armenian mostly -- with the Armenian script also dominating the walls around the tomb. And I had the strange praying priest pegged as a Syrian.

I am probably not going to be moved either, if it would have been Calvinists running the show, simply because I have strayed from the path too much. Apparently I am not susceptible to the mumbo-jumbo that is attached to Holy Sites. What struck me though and had me fascinated was how thoroughly Un-European this site is. If you think Christianity is a European faith, look at this holiest of holiest of it and you see nothing of it. Well, I suppose the majority of Christians aren't even Europeans, but if so, they are Africans, Asians, South-Americans, but this was not their atmosphere either. This was the atmosphere of where the Church originated: the Middle-East, or more precisely, where the Church as an institution originated: the Eastern Roman Empire. I felt as if I were in Constantinople before 1453 or even before 1099, before the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. That is what fascinated me.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Podcasts are extremely suitable for education. I have said it before, I am not the only one to say it, but just as with other podcasts: you have to know where to find them. Especially those institutions that put out their lectures as podcasts, apparently do that for their own students only and therefore invest no effort in making it known to the wider public that they are there. It is hard to find them on the internet, in podcast directories and other places where you might look. If you are interested to know what podcasts are offered by the various educational institutions in the world, you will have to look them up one by one or go through unfiltered directories and so on.

A case to bring this problem home is my History 5 podcast. I am on the look out for History Podcasts all the time. I have already discovered this series from UC Berkeley and figured it is delivered twice a year. I even came into contact with the professor who delivered it in 2006, but the 2007 series still eluded me until yesterday. Not for lack of searches, mind you. I queried the professor, I queried the iTunes directory (which so far got my marks for being the best source for searching podcasts) with no result.Yesterday I stumbled into it and this was while discovering one old and one new place on the web that delivers some inventory of educational podcasts:

I am off to learn History 5 again. This year, not with Thomas Laqueur, but with Margaret Lavinia Anderson. I have listened to the introductory lecture. Very different style from professor Laqueur, but I am sure I'll get used to it and I am eager in anticipation for getting the history of Europe 1450-2000 in a new style, per chance, from a new perspective, in any case with new insights.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

If you are into History Podcasts, History according to Bob is an inevitable find. Bob Packett is a College History professor who is just in love with telling stories. He also happens to be married to a computer savvy wife and she probably bought him all the equipment and training he needed for podcasting just have him off her back every once and a while. Have him talk into a microphone in stead of piling the history trivia onto her head, because this man is unbelievable. He cranks out the podcasts by the day. In episodes that vary from five to over forty-five minutes, he tackles one incident or era or person, taking the faithful listeners on a fast moving merry go round through world history. One day you are with the Incas the next running for president with Lyndon B. Johnson, or breathing gas in the trenches or sorting out the popes from the anti-popes and the odd anti-anti-pope.Bob has a contagious joy for the anecdotes throughout the ages, especially when they get tragic - you have to hear Bob say the word unfortunately laughing - bizarre or even tongue in cheek. Apart from the laughs and juicy stuff, he never forgets to point out what is important to know and understand, and also always delivers his sources. He has made over 500 podcasts already, some of which can be ordered in collections on CD, though in various archives can also be found on the web. One who subscribes to the feed will probably get only 30 to 40 stories from the backlog.I personally cannot keep up with Bob, he speaks more than I can listen, so I pick and choose on the basis of subject matter, skipping also the question and answer sections. Still I have heard probably up to 400 podcasts of Professor Bob teaching me history; I guess, Professor Bob has not yet begun.

Dr. David van Nuys whom we also know from Shrink Rap Radio, meets us again in another psychology podcast. Under the wings of 'Mental Help Net', he brings an interview podcast called ' Wise Counsel'. The podcast is similar to Shrinkrapradio in that Dr. Dave, in the familiar conversational style, conducts an interview with an expert, but so far, the six Wise Counsels seem to have a slightly more stringent formula. The interviewed experts are strictly from the field of applied psychology, mostly clinical psychology and the interviews have a direct connection with the mission of Mental Help Net: "The Mental Help Net website exists to promote mental health and wellness education and advocacy." In addition, there are no jazzy Dr. Dave promos and talkbacks with the audience through their emails and voice clips.So if you are a listener to Shrink Rap Radio and tend to tune out as soon as the interview is over, this is just more of the same. The same being, a high quality, informative podcast, albeit slightly less entertaining.The interviews thus far have been with:

Why didn't David Kalivas continue to publish his history lectures as podcasts? There are ten issues on line and that's it. The quality is very promising. I listened to them all, when I first discovered history podcasts. But then, as no new episodes came out, I discarded them. Now I went back and the lectures still stand out and still make for good history podcasts. So I am going over them again.

My first stop is with the two chapters about the Indus Valley civilizations. I knew nothing about them; I barely knew they had existed. I had never heard of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, never knew anything about the rise (or the origins for that matter) of Hinduism and the migration of the Indo-Aryan speaking peoples into the region.

Kalivas makes a few connections, such as the language connection between Sanskrit and modern English and other migrations such as those into ancient Greece. It is also very fascinating to find out the Harappan cultures had script -- only we cannot read it, yet. He neatly starts this and in an enthusiastic lecture takes the listener on a journey that makes for a nice introduction into what is there to know about the Indus valley civilizations, if you are capable of sticking with the tangent. You really have to bear with him when he jumps from the Harappan to Beowulf to 'ice-creamy'.

Dr. David van Nuys is going to be on a surge before he goes off to Hawaii for vacation. He is so devoted to the public of Shrinkrapradio, that he is not going to let them go with lesser ratio than one show a week, while he is away. And with a conference about dream study coming up he is going to take the opportunity to let a series of guests speak on the subject and then deliver also interviews he intends to make during the conference.

Today we start with the first episode in this string of shows, which is an interview with Robert Hoss on the language of dreams (#90 - The Language of The Dream).The interview starts off as usual with Dr. Dave querying Hoss on the subject and having him explain the scientifically established frame in which dreams take place. It is exposed well, how certain parts of the brain are inactive during sleep and yet others are active and how one should take on the images of dreams by means of what the active brain parts are functioning for. The conclusion that dreams have a language of their own, but since it is especially the lingual part of the brain that is inactive, whereas the emotional part is, it becomes evident that the imagery needs to be understood as emotive metaphors. Fine, so far so good.But then, Hoss begins to dominate the interview and is allowed to digest his book on the subject and feed the listener his technique of reconstructing the meaning of dreams as is also summarized in one page on his site. Interesting as this may be, I felt being in the midst of a book promotion and not an actual interview. Only at then end, when Hoss concludes his victorious display of a particularly successful dissection of some woman's dream, Van Nuys chips in again and pushes forward the question in what way the dream analysis had actually helped the woman forward or in any other way shed some new light on the situation. Finally and we go back into having an interview, but I feel our good host missed an opportunity to push Hoss a bit more with critical questioning.For example, I found it almost inconsistent, how he tackles the issue of colors in dreams. Once having established that the language system in the brain is off line and consequently we must understand the dream as emotional, metaphoric and strictly individual in its meanings, he seems to do a proper job in taking the objects in the dream on, by means of his questionnaire and allowing the dreamer to verbalize what some of the symbolism is, for him individually. Good point, it certainly puts in place generalized ideas that one specific symbol or another in a dream means a certain thing for everybody, like I am inclined to say that dreaming about a house means dreaming about ones identity and dreaming about a journey is about the conduct of ones life. That has made me think -- thanks to the interview.However, what warrants the color approach, which is not strictly individualized, but rather maps onto traditional schemes of color interpretation, just as my house and journey schemes above? Hoss couples each color with a set of questions that need to be chosen as the right association with the color, thus steering the individual interpretation towards a general pattern. I would have liked to hear Hoss comment on that and justify this approach.

Here I think we see a point that Dr. Dave may need to develop a little bit in order to become a better interviewer. It is all very fine and a wonderful starting point that he creates a good atmosphere and rapport with the interviewee and he is very good at that. It works very well as long as the interviewee is conscientiously making his point, but not when he drops the ball, or takes over the conversation to push his point unquestioned. It would make Shrinkrapradio even more exciting if Dr. Dave were to spot those moments in real time and chip in and challenge the speaker a bit.

Anyway, Shrinkrapradio is still one of the best podcasts around and a shining example for anybody who wants to try a hand in any kind of educational program.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present. If you got that pictured, you will have a firm grip on the world today, the western world in particular. Where to get that kind of education from, if not from a library full of books, or a course at the university?

The University of Berkeley offered such a course in 2006, in the spring and repeated in the fall, I had the privilege of being there. Not really, but by virtue of the podcasts they made out of the lectures. I didn't even miss out on the slide shows. I emailed the lecturer, Professor Thomas Laqueur (photo) and he made sure I got access to the Berkeley service area and could download the presentations, and I did.

This podcast is extremely worthwhile. It takes some getting used to the fact that one is not present in the room. Also the length of the lectures (80 minutes) and diversions in real time make for tough listening. Not to mention the professor's occasional absent-mindedness (he can stop mid sentence) or awkward giggling. I actually applaud his courage to put such raw material on line, one could easily burn the series down on account of these features. But all of this, for me, is invariably and for ever, compensated by the depth of the history. This course truly gives insight into 1450-2000, if you ever wanted it. Reading on from there, thinking on from there, listening on to more detailed podcasts on particular incidents from there, makes one blessed with a formidable frame of reference.

I am already waiting for the next world history course Berkeley is going to put on-line and until then, I keep going over Professor Laqueur's lectures one by one. If you want to know what my lunch break looks like: making and eating salad while listening to history 5.

I live in a world neither of great believers or of great skeptics. I grew up in a world of believers though, especially in alternative medicine, and when I made it to university I began to lean towards skepticism, even if I let my mom drag me to cold readings on Tuesday evenings. However, leaning towards skepticism is sometimes not enough. Much of alternative medicine has taken on a patina of credibility and consequently the larger public, though no great believers, forget to be skeptic. The same goes for the wide arrange of self-help books and workshops that are delivered. Hence, I think many good people need a skeptic wake up call and the academics, tooled with healthy doubt and skilled in method, should be less lax in bringing this to average person at large.What is more, skepticism has become a political need. Claims of creationism 'to be heard' in the secondary schools seem a prima facie evidently justified, so that one loses sight on the threats this implies for the quality of education. The next step is that 'to be heard' can be claimed by alternative ideas of history that are just as poorly founded as creationism, like all sorts of conspiracy theories or even Holocaust Denial. Before you know it, Science will be viewed as just one of many perspectives on truth and reality. Democracy as a justification of just any opinion, grading irrefutable religious, esoteric and wildly fantastic ideas in the same class as those that are collective, conventional and connected and those that are arrived at methodically and open to scrutiny at all times.

So, it is very good that some people take up the challenge and send around the skeptical wake up call. One such call is the weekly podcast: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Especially when the podcast features an interview with a professional in one field or another (even of pseudo-sciences), such as this week's issue, #94, are in my opinion especially worthy.

The most elite of the podcast reviewers (and most especially in the History genre). We use Anne is a Man! as a sort of barometer for how we are doing. Anne is a Man can assume the role of THE podcast reviewer on line; no one does it as well as he does.